Date:         Wed, 25 Jan 2006 09:53:36 -0600
Reply-To:     Al and Sue Brase <albeeee@MCHSI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Al and Sue Brase <albeeee@MCHSI.COM>
Subject:      Re: Leaking PS fluid, replace rack or just seals?
Comments: To: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
In-Reply-To:  <43D734EA.8050409@charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Yup, just about the same experience for me. The one on my 91 had
suffered from a bad boot when I bought it. The rack started leaking
shortly after that. I bought a boot kit, but found that the cylinder rod
part of the rack was rust pitted. At that point I abandoned all hope of
rebuilding it and put on a good used one.
If one had a few special tools, rebuilding racks would be straight
foreward, but might be almost more than most folks wanted to tackle.
R& R'ing them, is pretty easy. One really needs a 17mm (?) flare nut
wrench and an incredible strength to crack the flare nuts loose. I don't
have one and found my antique Superrench (kind of a 9 inch automatic
pipe wrench) saved my honor on that job. Another trick: the splined
joint where the relay shaft joins the pinion shaft- I removed the clamp
bolt, then drove a small cold chisel into the gap to remove the clamping
pressure. It was rusted and tight.
I'm pretty sure that the relay shaft to pinion joint will go on at any
position (not keyed, in other words). Just reset the steering wheel to
get it centered again.
Al Brase

John Rodgers wrote:

> Actually it't the seal kit installation that is the PITA. I succeeded in
> breaking the cylinder barrel locking ring on mine. And that little
> sucker was  thin machined aluminum with about 5 threads in it. So
> besides the kit that had to be installed, I had to take the ring to a
> machine shop, have them weld it, then rethread the thing, before I could
> finish the seal installation. Arrgh!! What a nightmare.
>
> John
>